Pablo Vargas Lugo at Massimo Audiello - New York

The works of Mexican artist Pablo Vargas Lugo at first look like crisply delineated abstract paintings, somewhat similar to the works of Inka Essenhigh. Vargas Lugo, however, doesn't create his compositions with paint, but by cutting and layering variously colored pieces of paper, often using photographs or old maps. His recent show featured new works (all 29 inches square) from three different series, along with a video and a "wall drawing."

Considering, some of the artist's subject matter, the works can seem a little like the craft projects of a disturbed child. In his "Landscapes from Hell" series, Vargas Lugo uses bold, jarring color combinations to create netherworlds in which volcanic forms spew toxic clouds that arch over molten landscapes. Each strangely beautiful scene is self-contained and floats on a solid dark background. Examples from the artist's "Torn Map" series at first look like scraps of paper violently ripped from a whole. Yet closer inspection reveals that each little bit of paper is contoured with a different-colored paper that Vargas Lugo has lovingly cut to define the edges. The subdued palette and careful construction of these works contrasts with the implied violence of their making.

Works in a third group, called "Cross-eyed Views," are more compositionally complex. With majestic mountain vistas, sweeping valleys and beams of heavenly light piercing billowing clouds, some of the scenes seem inspired by Baroque paintings. Each image is bifurcated by a triangular void slicing down the middle, perhaps signifying the visual distortion implied by the title, and each contains a circular eyeball form that at once resembles a radiating sun and a fried egg with many legs. The pictures' halves are often linked by curving lines that arc between them like an unmoored optic nerve.

Two other works in the show could almost be by a different artist, so lacking are they in the technical finesse seen in the cutout works. Star Foreshortening is a video piece projected inside a tall, ripped-up and taped-together cardboard box. The projected image shows two undulating stars, one hovering over the other on a flaglike background. The press release stated that the piece is intended to evoke a "passionate exchange," but it could just as easily be read as stars floating on a moving current of water. Ulysses was a mural-sized adhesive transfer print applied directly to the wall; according to the gallery, the artist was supposed to draw the image on the wall but was unable to obtain a U.S. entry visa in time for the opening. An outlined image of a spacecraft trapped in the limbs of a tree, this piece, along with the boinking stars, seemed adrift in this otherwise coherent show.

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